It amazes me that he brought him up again, our Lord has His reasons, and there is no harm in us asking our Father about those reasons, but we must also learn to be content when we are told we do not need to know.
God brought up Job in the conversation, perhaps because Satan had noticed him, which I am sure from the account that he had, or he would not have brought up the hedge, but it was the second time I wonder about. I do not know the time frame from the first incident, where Job lost basically everything in one day to when Satan began to touch his flesh, but it must not have been very long. The father needed to bury his children, he needed to sort through just what was left before he sat down to mourn.
Then came the words from our adversary that every born-again believer should contemplate at length, “And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” (Job 2:4) I believe we are fast approaching these days again, I believe that Satan is paying a lot of attention to what is going on in heaven at this moment, for the path of the world is determined in the Spiritual realm. (Prov. 16:9) He can only do so much, as he was allowed to do to Job in the first encounter, destroy and kill everything, but do not touch him, (Job 1:12) but in the second, Satan made it very personal, he truly believed that Job would in some way dishonor the Lord when the pain switched from mental anguish to physical pain.
I believe that Satan learned a very valuable lesson that day, one that he has employed over and over, and is beginning to again. One must wonder, if left alone after the first encounter, how would of Job reacted, how much sorrow can a man take. It was insult to injury, and Job held his integrity through the entire ordeal, (Job 1:22) but I am going to start wondering soon I think when, if the Lord allows it, will our adversary say of the children of the Most High God that are alive today, “skin for skin.”
The fear of the so-called pandemic is not working as well as it once was, too many people are starting to see the truth, the second wave will not transform into the tenth wave, soon they will run out of countries and names for the supposed variants, the fear has already begun to abate in many places, it may be time for “skin for skin.”
Everything is of course in God’s timeline, and I do not believe that our adversary is privy to all of that, case in point, I do not think that he believed another trip to Job was going to be necessary, I believe he thought everything that was accomplished on the first encounter would do the trick, and I am going to guess that not only was he very irritated that the second encounter did not work either, but was furious watching Job gain even more and probably die a very happy man.
I hope I am wrong, but I am starting to wonder if Satan is going to be approaching the Almighty someday soon in regards to the willing servants, the children of the Most High and saying, “skin for skin, I know that the chaff is being separated from the wheat, I know the harvest is close.” “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” (Matt. 24:36) But we can see the times, and they are eerily familiar to both the day of Job and of Jeremiah, they are as before the flood of Noah and the last moments of the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Out Lord will not put anything in front of us, He will not allow us to go through anything that we have not been given the ability to endure, but that does not mean that all of us are simply going to be passed by the evil that is beginning to cover this planet. Skin for skin, my friends, you must begin to ponder these words, especially the last part of that sentence, “all that a man hath will he give for his life.” The thing is, Job really didn’t have anything left to lose, did he.
